Chester County plans public health awareness drive

WEST GOSHEN – Chester County, while among the healthiest counties in the nation, still faces challenges when it comes to public health, county health care leaders were told in the first part of a planning effort spearheaded by the county’s Health Department.

“We have a lot of resources in Chester County,” said Jennifer Kolker, associate dean for Public Health at Drexel University, told more than 100 participants in a Friday presentation on the county’s health assessment survey at the county Government Services Center.

“It is a great place to live. But we also have pockets that are not so great,” Kolker said.

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Her presentation was part of the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) strategies planning tool that the county began working on in June 2011. The so-called RoadMAPP to Health is the “gold-standard” for public health care assessments, according to one of the participants at Friday’s 90-minute meeting.

The RoadMAPP includes a wealth of information on the state of the county’s health care system, and a snapshot of the general health of its residents. More than 30 agencies and organizations from across the county were involved in the initial assessment phase.

Most starling for many were figures showing the disparity in children’s health among different ethnic and racial groups, and the role violence plays in people efforts to live a health life.

The statistics discussed by Kolker; Barbara Mancill, of the United Way of Chester County; Paul Huberty, Sr. of the Chester County Hospital; and Ashley Orr of the health department showed that black babies were more than three times as likely to have low birth weights than white babies, and that of those surveyed from the community, the largest number – 44 percent – said they considered low crime rates to be the most important factors contributing to a health community.

“I thought this effort was important,” said Pamela Bryer, the former head of the county’s Maternal Health and Child Care Consortium and now an independent health care consultant, after attending the meeting.

“I thought it was profound that many residents reported living in fear of violence and trauma in their daily lives and that significant disparities exist in health outcomes, especially in low birth weight between white and black and Hispanic infants,” Bryer said.

“There is there is an immediate need for improved coordination between and within the service providers, faith communities and education to improve the overall health and wellbeing of county residents,” she said.

“I think this is a major, major issue we have to get a handle on, especially in a community like Coatesville, Frances Sheehan, president of the Brandywine Health Foundation, an organization that focuses on the greater Coatesville area, said Friday of the birth weight issue after the presentation.

Sheehan also focused on the issue of heaving a health and safe living area. “Having a safe neighborhood is important to people” Sheehan said. “The police and community involvement in creating those safe neighborhoods has become a critical health issue.”

Brandywine Health, she said, would thus redouble its efforts to provide health communities for children. “We need to make the case for Coatesville kids. They deserve better.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Ryan Costello, who attended Friday’s presentation, said he was encouraged that the RoadMAPP program would not diminish over time. Recommendations on how to move forward came at the end of the session from those in attendance, and will be acted on by the planning effort’s leaders.

“The number and wide scope of public stakeholders involved, and the wide-range of methodologies used in preparing the initial community assessment, makes me optimistic that RoadMAPP is going to be extremely valuable for the future of maintaining our public health outcomes,” Costello said.

“In other words, it’s not going to be a static, “stick on the shelf-type study,” he said.